RIVER HILL
WITH ECOLOGIST JOSH SMITH,
MOWN YARROW & CHAMOMILE, POLLINATING PLANTS, GRANITE BOULDERS, BLACK LOCUST LOGS, SEICHE SOIL & EARTH
250’ X 200’ 2022
The design of River Hill looks to the meander of the Buffalo River as well as holding to the core structure of a central circle. An active monument used for transformation and growth, the hill has been planted with hardy pollinators through which a five-foot wide path of mown yarrow and chamomile spirals. The path is punctuated with granite boulders and standing black locust logs enlivening the current post-industrial site. The intention of the work is twofold: to attract bees, birds and people by gifting food, color, sweet odor, as well as an opportunity to physically wind and unwind. The process of walking a winding path of intentional pivots creates a muscle memory in the walker facilitating the process of viewing the world (inner & outer) from reversed perspectives. The labyrinth, a sacred, ancient, and living form works to help us come into right relationship with nature, the divine, and the nature of ourselves.
"As a filmmaker I understand the physical movement through the labyrinth as a movie of sorts with the potential for an emotional development or shift, a chance to tell ourselves a story. " DF
“Perhaps that is what we need. Artists as foresters…poets as ecologists.” —Robin Wall Kimmerer
Silo City, Buffalo, New York. Produced by Bronwyn Keenan, University at Buffalo Arts Collaboratory, Working Artists Lab.
Numbers:
Path is ca. 1,450 feet long
Nearly 3,000 plants and growing
Approx. 300 cubic yards of soil and earth
On 1/3 acre
